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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

There's a bit of backstory here so bear with me. The other Saturday I was at a wedding and during the post service lull while Emma was feeding Noah some lunch I went in search of a paper. I only read the Sports section before the days events moved on, and yesterday evening I enjoyed the simple pleasure of reading a newspaper. What struck me was how much reference to porn there was. Porn is in the news not because we think it's wrong but because the husband of the Home Secretary charged his viewing pleasure to the public.

"Research is showing that porn is indeed addictive, especially to men, and that it damages their libido in the longterm. Experts on sexual dysfunction are seeing an epidemic today of healthy young men who cannot perform easily with their partners because they have been overexposed to pornography."

and

"I am noting that the power and charge of sex are maintained when there is some sacredness to it."

Added to that there has been a 'lust' convergence in the last few days with a few bloggers thinking about different aspects of the same issue.

* Note: Mark Driscoll's Porn Again Christian is worth getting a hold of especially for younger guys and the best web filters to block out pornography I've come across are Naomi and K9. Both work well, both free.

6
comments:

"Mark Driscoll's Porn Again Christian is worth getting a hold of especially for younger guys"Personally I think that recommendation needs a health warning. Mark has a number of very unorthodox views on sexuality and his views on issues such as gender and violence are by no means acceptable to many.

"best web filters to block out pornography I've come across are Naomi and K9. Both work well, both free."Just wondering how you test these :-)

We have a dedicated firewall machine running IPCOP, a free specialist Linux distribution, I have add-ons installed for content filtering that catch a whole range of issues such as violence as well as porn. I find a few false positives for blog posts etc but can manage url and domain exceptions if needed.

I confess to being suspicious of software installed on any machine where people have admin access (especially if it is running windows).

For us all internet connections from any device whether wired or wireless go through our firewall and only I have access to control that.

However, I know (but the kids don't) how you could use anonymising servers such as the Tor network to bypass most security systems.

In other words I am quite confident that people who are addicted to porn will find ways of accessing it despite these software solutions. They therefore have the potential to make things seem ok when they are not - hence they are not a complete solution.

Hi Dave, thanks for the comment. I know you're not Mark Driscoll's biggest fan :) but he challenges lust, porn and honours marriage and faithfulness and chastity and does it in a no holds barred way that I think works with young guys. There aren't that many resources available.

You're right no filter is foolproof and passwords and admin access and everything can be bypassed. The issue is the heart and the desires but a few simple measures can help in making it that much more difficult, you have to be a determined sinner to bypass them.

If people want to be deceitful then it's pretty difficult to stop. If people are serious about change and overcoming besetting sin, then these sort of safeguards can be of some help but aren't the total answer.